I'm your host, Jester. I've been an EVE Online player for about six years. One of my four mains is Ripard Teg, pictured at left. Sadly, I've succumbed to "bittervet" disease, but I'm wandering the New Eden landscape (and from time to time, the MMO landscape) in search of a cure.You can follow along, if you want...

Monday, April 1, 2013

POTW: How was your weekend?

Almost every EVE PvPer has a screen-cap like this, and now I have a new one:

I'm not one for writing battle reports, but I think I'll write two today, just to prove I Play This Game(tm). This fight started with a Rote Kapelle very small gang (we had four: me in a Cane, Brutix, Harbinger, Caracal). We encountered an ExodusDOT Prophecy sitting a bit off a low-sec gate. Exodus is a small alliance, but mighty, particularly in the small-gang setting where they've been a AT contender. They've got some great pilots and some great tactics and this was no exception.

Our scout engages on the Prophecy and calls the rest of us in. He is the aggressor, so he draws gate-gun fire. Once the rest of us come in and as we're burning in, a second Exodus Prophecy warps in landing just off his buddy. I can see right away that they're HAM Prophs, and since I have one of these myself, I know that:

they're going to be RR fit;

they're going to out-DPS everything we have but the Brutix;

they're going to be tanky as hell; and,

I need to keep my speed up against not only the HAMs but what are likely to be heavy drones as well.

And sure enough, both Prophs put Ogre IIs out.

Our Brutix is tough, but he's shield-scram fit, taking fire from two Prophs, is scrammed himself, and is taking gate guns. It's a monster DPS fit, but slightly thin. He doesn't last very long at all. But through a lot of over-heating, we're able to break through both the self-rep and a remote rep and knock down the first Prophecy almost immediately after our Brutix dies. This is really lucky because our Harbinger gets wildly over-aggressive, loads Conflag ammo, burns in on the second Proph and gets himself scrammed. The Harbinger is also a shield fit, with two LSEs and no resists. The Proph Ogres and Hammerheads start going to absolute town on him since a Harbinger's thermal resist is 30%. Ouch. It's depressing to watch how fast he goes down.

That leaves myself and the Caracal, and we're both point-fit and keeping a bit more distance. I've got Fusion loaded and am using Hobs in this Cane fit. The Ogres come after me but I keep my MWD burning and so am able to outrun some of their DPS. But since we're still the aggressors, I'm taking gate guns and he isn't. Even with my ASB (which I had to pulse occasionally to mitigate the gate gun damage even before he starts shooting at me), he out-tanks me by a wide margin and so you can see how close it was. ;-) To take him down, I need both our Caracal's help and I dangerously over-heat my guns which start in two groups, but I end up going from 70% to 100% heat on one group and 80% to 100% on the other, burning out three of them a few seconds before he goes down. Fortunately, I remember to break the gun groups to reactivate the ones I didn't manage to destroy. I only manage to activate one gun before our other DPS finishes the job. I warp off before the gate guns can finish me.

Definite derps on our part, but it was an epic fight! Big props to Exodus pilots Vytone and Percefis. gf, guys!

10 comments:

"This fight started with a Rote Kapelle very small gang (we had four: me in a Cane, Brutix, Harbinger, Caracal)."

In CAS, we've taken to calling anything less than a full squad "microgang PvP"--something we've done in Syndicate for over five years now. It allows us to communicate with all the big alliance alts in our corp chat who refer to 30-70 people as "small gang PvP". (We don't have enough pilots to risk epidemics of eyestrain from excessive rolling--it's a preventative thing.)

Congrats on what sounds like a great fight on both sides, and for what might be your biggest unknown accomplishment of all--making me go through my schedule and carve out some time for PvP. :)

"we're able to break through both the self-rep and a remote rep and knock down the first Prophecy "Just a heads up - I don't see a self rep on either prophecy on the battle report. http://eve-kill.net/?a=kill_related&kll_id=17004720

That's because eve-kill has outdated layouts for the Prophecy (and all the other ships that changed at the same time). They also don't have Ancillary Armor Repairers in the data set they are using, so you won't see them show up. But you should have noticed they have 2 extra modules in the mids that are not in a box (meaning extra) and are missing two modules in the highs. Look on the Rote Kapelle killboard that was linked and you'll see a more accurate depiction of the fittings.

So what happened to you saying that the Hurricane sucks now? :) This is the second time since they were nerfed that you've written about flying one (the other time was your participation in the Tuskers Death Race).

That said, the most recent change (removing one turret slot) actually undid some of the Hurricane nerf, allowing heavier guns to be fit on some models again. But yeah, I'm deliberately trying to get my Canes killed. ;-)

It was definately a good fight guys. To clarify percefis was on your side of the gate I was on the other waiting for aggro. When the fight started I jumped in and found myself 22 km off Percefis in the other prophecy and couldnt get reps on him until after he was below %50 armor. Terrible jump in spawn for sure. But it was the fight we wanted. The brutix was the obvious primary and I think he died just about 20 seconds before our first prophecy. I continued on the harb and then the cane. Had I overheated my missiles a bit sooner I may have killed that as well, when I died I had about %50 heat damage. Super close and fun fight guys. Thought I would add my perspective in case anyone was interested.Vy

Thanks for that insight, was a fun fight. I derped and burnt out my guns about 10 secs before I popped. Did think about skirmishing at 20 km with scorch but said fuckit and loaded conflag. Been a while since I've been in a small "lets fuck each other up balls deep fight".

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